Flemish beef stew

Flemish Carbonnade

The ultimate comfort food, a northern cousin to our Boeuf Bourguignon.
While the cooking method is similar, the flavors are completely different:
sweet, spiced… Flemish carbonnade warms all hearts in winter!

But beware, this sweet dish holds a few surprises…
Dark beer adds just the right amount of bitterness to balance the sugars.

An easy dish to prepare, which simmers all by itself for hours...
And one that's forgotten to be better enjoyed!

Ingredients

1.5 kg braising meat (chuck, top blade, shank, or ideally beef cheek)
4 onions
40 g butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar (or dark vergeoise sugar)
6 slices of homemade gingerbread
(if you use store-bought gingerbread, I recommend using half gingerbread / half country bread)
75 cl dark beer
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon “MAISON BARTHES”
2 cloves “MAISON BARTHES”
4 grains of Kampot black long pepper “MAISON BARTHES”
1 bouquet garni
Salt, freshly ground pepper

Recipe

Finely slice the onions.
In a Dutch oven, melt 20 g of butter to sear the meat (do this in batches if the pot is small – it's important to get a nice golden crust).
Season with salt and pepper, and set the meat aside on a large plate.
Melt the remaining 20 g of butter in the Dutch oven and sauté the onions.
Season with salt and pepper, and scrape up the pan drippings from the bottom of the pot to recover the cooking aromas from the meat.
Add the cinnamon, the cloves, the long pepper, and heat for 3 minutes.
Return the meat to the Dutch oven with its juices. Add the bouquet garni, the beer, the brown sugar, then arrange the slices of gingerbread on top.
At the first boil, lower the heat, cover, and let simmer over low heat for 3 hours.
After 3 hours, remove the lid, slightly increase the heat to reduce the sauce until it becomes thick and coating.